1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to computer enclosures, and more particularly to a computer enclosure incorporating a peripheral device module therein.
2. Related Art
Many computer systems, including personal computers, workstations, servers, and embedded systems are designed to have multiple peripheral devices included therein. Such peripheral devices include, for example, compact disk read-only memory (CD-ROM) drives, hard disk drives, and floppy disk drives. There have been numerous attempts at making such components of a computer easily replaceable and interchangeable. In particular, modular data storage device assemblies have been adapted to be mounted to computer enclosures.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,822,184 discloses a modular data storage assembly comprising a housing enclosure that is designed to fit into an expansion bay. The housing enclosure defines an internal open area and a front opening. A plurality of guide members mounted in the housing enclosure defines a plurality of hard disk drive bays in the open area. A plurality of individual plug-in data storage devices is adapted to be slid along the guide members into respective hard disk drive bays. The housing enclosure has exterior dimensions corresponding to interior dimensions of the expansion bay, such that the housing enclosure is operatively mountable in the expansion bay by inserting the housing enclosure therein as a self-contained unit. However, the structures of the components of the data storage assembly are unduly complicated. Furthermore, the mounting procedure is cumbersome and time consuming.
For the above reasons, an improved mounting apparatus for peripheral device modules is desired.